From the Jacket: Hugely charismatic, humble, and possessed of preternatural luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya.Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai’s extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her “contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace.”
In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiring message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency.
Unbowed is an amazing story, Wangari Maathai is a strong and determined African Woman who does not allow obstacles to stand in her way of protecting the environment. Her commitment to the Greenbelt movement and her fight for democracy in Kenya is truly inspiring.
ReplyDeleteUnbowed by Wangari Maathai: This was the March 2009 reading selection. Unbowed is a memoir of the Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her sacrificial contribution to sustainable development, peace and democracy in Kenya. She is commonly known for her tree-planting efforts and in Unbowed she shares how deep the roots of her trees run in her love for humanity and strive for social justice.
ReplyDeleteHer humble rural colonial Kenya beginnings paint a picture of an environment unadulterated, in a delicate balance between man and nature. She thrives in the formal European education system through catholic schools. She is then goes to Kansas, USA for university education through the “Kennedy Airlift” which gave scholarships to Kenyans in preparation of the inevitable post-colonial Kenya. Its clear that her stay in the USA shaped her critical thinking. She returns to ‘free’ Kenya, full of enthusiasm to serve her country. She is greeted with a lot of love from her family but the realities of the post-colonial Africa hit her, and these were loaded with tribalism, nepotism and sexism. She gets married, completes her PHD in Biology and becomes a mother. She chronicles her activism and pro-democracy work and it becomes clear that for Wangari Maathai, it was a calling she could not run away from.
She paid dearly for her pursuit, her marriage fell apart, incarceration, bodily injury and a clear threat to her life especially during the Moi dictatorship during which a lot people were killed for their opposition. In some instances it left us wondering if all the sacrifices were worth it, but when you read the last paragraph of the book it becomes apparent that it was all worth it and trailblazing. Her courage to stand against all the odds with such humility is so remarkable for this African woman.